


The Darkest Hour

by little0bird



Series: Spring Returning [9]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Early Pregnancy, F/M, Miscarriage, middle of the night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 15:43:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20744651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little0bird/pseuds/little0bird
Summary: What had woken her?Brienne propped herself up on her elbows.  Nikolas slept soundly in the crib next to the bed.  Jaime snorted in his sleep as her movements jostled him,  but didn’t stir. It hadn’t been either of them.





	The Darkest Hour

What had woken her? 

Brienne propped herself up on her elbows. Nikolas slept soundly in the crib next to the bed. Jaime snorted in his sleep as her movements jostled him, but didn’t stir. It hadn’t been either of them. 

She settled back into her pillow, shifting, recoiling from the dampness under her arse. Her thighs were sticky. She frowned. _ Did we…? _ she wondered. There had been a few times at Winterfell where they’d awakened in the middle of the night, reaching for one another, more asleep than awake, their lovemaking a slow, sweet tangle of limbs and even softer kisses. She would wake in the gloaming of dawn thinking it had been a dream. _ We did not… _ They had helped each other undo laces and push clothing off weary limbs, too exhausted to do more than pull the blankets over themselves before sleep claimed them. Nikolas could be a rambunctious child, but the previous day had been particularly trying. He was teething and it made him fractious, despite his generally sunny nature. They had spent most of the day passing the fretful child back and forth between them. Brienne drew a fingertip across the inside of one thigh and held it up to the candlelight. The smudge on her finger was dark, with the faint metallic scent of blood.

Pain radiated from her middle, shooting to her fingertips and toes. 

Her hands clenched into fists, while her body curled into itself. A soft moan slipped from her throat, muffled by her tightly pressed together lips. 

The pain faded, and Brienne slid from the bed, wrapping her cloak around her naked body. She quietly gathered her clothing and indoor boots, then paused staring at the bed. She tugged the blankets over the smear of blood. If Jaime saw it, she hoped he would assume it was only time for her blood, and nothing more. She would come back and deal with it later, before the maids could come in and change the sheets. She tiptoed from the chamber, then made her way to the bathhouse. 

The bathhouse itself was deserted, as it often was this time of night. Brienne dropped the bundle of clothes on a bench just inside the door, and bent double as another cramp seized her body. She pulled off the cloak and left it next to her clothes, then shuffled to the pile of towels and wound one around her waist, and then draped another over her shoulders. She huddled on the floor, in front of the banked fire, waiting for it to be over. 

It was messy, painful, and mercifully brief. 

She got to her feet, feeling like a dandelion that had gone to seed. That if someone touched her she might fly apart in hundreds of pieces. She mechanically moved about the bathhouse, filling pitchers with hot water, sponging the blood off her thighs before giving herself a sketchy wash. She dressed and threw the blood-stained towels into a basket, then retreated into the relative safety of the solar. More for something to do than an actual need for warmth, Brienne built up the fire. It crackled merrily, quite at odds with her mood. She sat on the cushioned settle, staring into the flames.

The ache in her chest made it difficult to breathe. 

That she even felt something resembling grief was bewildering. 

She was deeply ambivalent about having another child, but had forced herself to quash down any hope the first month she hadn’t bled, and then the next. 

She hadn’t mentioned her suspicions to Jaime. It wasn’t worth getting his hopes up as well as her own. And if he had noticed anything, he hadn’t said. 

Layered over the grief was the bitter tang of failure. Brienne was grateful Septa Roelle was long dead. As if she needed another cudgel with which to beat her over the head about her inability to do even the most basic function as a woman.

She whimpered and a few tears trickled down her face. She wiped them away with the heel of her palm, then took a deep breath. Weeping wouldn’t change anything.

She stood and moved towards the desk, pausing to light a taper at the fire, then lit the cluster of candles on either side of it. 

Brienne sharpened a quill the way she preferred, opened a ledger, then bent her head over it. She had work to do.


End file.
